


of love and dreams to share

by zoeyclarke



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Chicago Med Secret Santa 2019, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Gift Fic, Light Angst, Married Couple, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeyclarke/pseuds/zoeyclarke
Summary: She hasn't heard from him in twelve hours, and it's been a long day.
Relationships: Ava Bekker/Connor Rhodes (Chicago Med)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	of love and dreams to share

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DC_bookfanatic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DC_bookfanatic/gifts).



> i was happy to find out i was the secret santa for the #1 rhekker shipper in this fandom! i decided to go with the second prompt you described, with married rhekker and a pregnant ava worrying about connor who is either missing or hospitalized. i hope i did your prompt justice! i had a fun time writing it (and sorry it's a little late, haha!)
> 
> i took the title from sleeping at last's version of "christmas time is here," since i know they're one of your favorites!
> 
> please enjoy, and happy holidays to everybody who took part in this gift exchange! it's been so great reading everyone's work <3

It takes her twenty heart-pounding minutes to finish the surgery, and before she’s even set down all her tools, she is snapping at the resident assisting her to close up.

Ava bursts out of the operating room, feverishly stripping off her blood-spattered gloves and scrubs. At one point during surgery, the patient’s artery was nicked and a disturbingly flawless arc of scarlet had spurted up and hit her right in the face. Ava isn’t even sure who’s fault it is that the slip happened; she’s going with the resident just to be safe, though. She also keeps her eyes trained on the scene through the clear glass while she washes her hands, ensuring no other slip-ups take place while the resident closes.

Thankfully, everything looks fine, so Ava takes her leave. She steamrolls through the outer door back into the main hallway of the cardiothoracic wing. The hospital is functioning just fine as always, working like a well-oiled machine with its own occasional trip-ups. Today, however, is not an example of one of those chaotic days, and that bothers the hell out of her. Why aren’t more people  _ upset?  _

Ava marches up to the desk, where she finds Ethan at one of the computers, awaiting news on the status of his patient— the same 43-year-old with a heart murmur that she just operated on.

“Dr. Choi,” she says as she comes to a restless halt beside him. 

“Dr. Rhodes,” he returns, bowing his head slightly. When he straightens again, he has a tentative smile perched on his face. “C’mon, I know formalities are a habit around here. But you can just call me Ethan.”

Ava grins stiffly, rocking back on her feet. Yes, she has been at Med for going on six years now, but referring to her coworker like it’s the first time they’ve met doesn’t really faze her. The sensation of feeling awkward just isn’t encoded in her DNA, she supposes.

“Right,” she says after a pause. “Um, my bad. I guess my mind is on other... things right now. But anyway”— her tone takes a sharp turn so that he can’t cut in— “your patient is doing well. The RCA was hit by a stray scalpel twenty minutes in, but we repaired the damage quickly with minimal blood loss. It looks like he’ll be on his way to full recovery in no time.”

Ethan nods affirmatively. “Great. Thank you, Ava. I’ll go tell his family the news.”

She starts to go around him, but he reaches out a hand and presses it on her shoulder, bringing her to a reluctant stop. “Hey,” he says, lowering his gaze and keeping it steadily locked with hers. “It’s going to be okay.”

Ava chews on the inside of her cheek and gently shrugs his hand off. “Yeah,” she mutters. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Her voice is paper-thin, devoid of anything. She ignores his sympathetic expression, which stings her as she brushes past him towards the elevators.

She jabs the down button, and luckily the elevator arrives before she has a chance to start tapping her foot impatiently. Once she steps inside, the doors close, and she hits the button for the emergency level, Ava crumples to the floor. She feels like a limp tissue tossed around by the wind, knocked over at the lightest breath. She only has thirty seconds to sit there with her face buried in her arms, fists clenched, tears leaving shiny trails down her cheeks. For just about the millionth time today, she goes over what happened in her head.

Her alarm went off at four-thirty this morning. Today is Connor’s day off, so when she rolled over in bed, she’d expected to find him next to her, snoring softly. But his side was cold, the sheets neatly tucked under the pillow and comforter. She picked up her phone to turn off the alarm and found his usual  _ “good morning xx”  _ text that always popped up on her screen without fail. He’d sent it only a few minutes ago. Ava then got up, whipped open the curtains, and discovered a flurry outside. She watched the snowflakes lazily swirl down to the ground, coating the city with white slush. Then she’d called out his name. Then again. And again. There was no reply. Out in the kitchen as she’d poured hot tea into a travel mug (because she is trying to lay off coffee for the time being), Connor left her just one other flimsy paper clue: a sticky note stuck to the granite counter, reading  _ “Getting an early start today. See you tonight <3” _

Now it’s twelve hours later, and he hasn’t responded to any of her texts. His car was gone from its parking space next to hers this morning. Nobody at work has seen or heard from him. It’s twelve hours later and Ava has no  _ idea  _ where the hell her husband is.

The elevator doors roll open, and Ava is quick to hop back up and wipe the messy emotion off her face. She is definitely not in the mood for more questions and concerned looks thrown in her direction. She  _ knows  _ everyone knows how upset she is; after all, Ethan was able to see right through her like she’s transparent, and that was before she started crying.

Natalie and Will are working together on a troubling case, and they paged Ava for it a few hours ago. That was before she was called into emergency surgery on Ethan’s patient. Apparently they still need her help, so here she is— and their need becomes more apparent as Ava approaches treatment one and the pair’s incessant arguing comes into earshot. 

The former couple are standing on the other side of the curtain, leaning in close to each other. Judging by Will’s accusatory expression and Natalie’s taut fists, it was clearly a mistake to put these two on the same case. A tired sigh wheezes through Ava’s lungs, and she nudges her way in between them. “Alright, alright, stop it,” she growls, shooting daggers back and forth. “This isn’t  _ Grey’s Anatomy.  _ The doctors don’t need their own drama on top of everything else.”

Will steps back and gives his own heavy sigh, smoothing his hair back. “Sorry. She was just—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ava interrupts. “If it takes precedence over the patient, then it needs to go. Personal problems shouldn’t mean jack shit on the job.”

Will grumbles, but when Natalie gives him a warning glance, he shuts up. Ava stiffens when Nat’s fingers close gently on her upper arm. “Ava,” Nat murmurs, her voice gentle and light as a feather compared to how it was a minute ago— the voice of a mother. “Listen, we know how stressed you must be.”

“Yeah, you... you look exhausted,” Will supplies. Another scowl makes him zip his lips once more.

“If you need a break, it’s okay. We can figure this out ourselves,” says Nat.

Ava sets her jaw and peers past them through the slit in the curtain, where April is tending to the patient— a young child. Oh, wonderful. This will definitely make her emotional. But she doesn’t have time for emotions, so deep into the imaginary filing cabinet they go.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ava replies, waving them off. “Also, clearly you two can’t figure this out on your own, so I’m going to help.” Before she goes into the room, she turns back to make fleeting eye contact with her friends. Tears sting the back of her eyes like acid, but she blinks rapidly to ward them off. “Remember, personal problems don’t matter when the patient’s health is at risk. There’s more important matters to attend to than—” Her sentence tapers off suddenly, like there’s a clog in her throat. Swallowing hard, Ava spins away from them and plunges into yet another distressing case.

“Hello,” Ava greets the little boy, plastering on a friendly, reassuring smile as she nudges the curtain aside and squirts sanitizer onto her hands. “I’m Dr. Rhodes. What’s your name?”

“Carter,” the boy sniffles, eyeing her uneasily.

For a moment, Ava thinks he said  _ Connor,  _ and she freezes unintentionally, continuing to rub her hands together despite the sanitizer being all gone. She notices April staring at her with the same big, worried eyes everybody else seems to possess today. With that, Ava snaps out of it and moves the rest of the way over to Carter’s bed. “Very nice to meet you, Carter. My friends Dr. Manning and Dr. Halstead told me you’ve been having some tummy troubles.”

The kid appears to relax now, reacting well to her warmth and easygoing demeanor (which are a thin veil covering a storm of other emotions). Seeing this smooths Ava’s ruffled feathers a bit too; Connor’s always been better with children than she has, but this type of interaction is something she’ll have to get used to. Absently, she rests a hand on her still flat stomach, but then the tears rush up again and she forces her hands into gloves instead.

“Yes,” Carter says with an earnest nod. “My tummy feels bad. And I have hurties in my chest.”

Ava frowns and takes her stethoscope from its place around her neck. “Okay, Carter. I want you to take a deep breath for me and hold it in.” He complies and she presses the end of the device against his chest. He must be used to this; he’s already sitting up straight without needing to be told to. She listens, counting the beats for fifteen seconds, then says, “Perfect. Let out that breath now.”

Carter gives a giant exhale and blinks up at her with irresistible baby blues. “Is my mommy coming soon?” he asks. 

April finishes adjusting the IV machine and steps up to massage the boy’s little shoulders. “Yes, she is, sweetie. We gave her a call and she’s on her way now.” She glances at Ava to provide context. “His babysitter dropped him off and had to run.”

“So you’ll be seeing her very soon,” Ava tells him, snapping off her gloves and ruffling his sandy hair. 

Carter giggles. “You sound funny, Miss Doctor.”

_ Is it the accent, or the sound of me choking back tears?  _ Ava pushes the thought away and doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s because I’m from a place far away from here.”

Carter’s jaw drops. “Woah! Like California? That’s where my mama is from.” He turns to April. “Is— is my mama coming too?”

“Yes. Both your mommy and mama are getting here as fast as they can,” April affirms.

Ava gives Carter a warm farewell alongside the promise that she’ll be back to check on him soon. She rushes through her conversation with Natalie and Will, asks for more tests to be ordered, then makes it barely past the nurses’ station when she hears her name.

Ava hopes the slump of her shoulders isn’t too visible; she still has an hour left on her shift and she would give anything to sit down for just ten seconds. Biting back an aggravated groan, she turns back around and finds Dr. Charles and Ms. Goodwin in a hushed conversation by the desk. 

“Hey, Ava,” Charles says when she joins them. “How’re you doing?”

“Um... I’m fine.” Ava meets his beady eyes, then looks away. “For the most part.”

He nods, and she continues to avert her gaze because she already knows there’s sympathy carved between the wrinkles on his face. “Well, listen. We appreciate you working hard today in spite of all your worries. I know it’s unlike Connor to go off the radar for several hours.”

Ava gulps but says nothing, shifting her eyes over to Goodwin. As usual, her superior is wearing a solemn expression, a mask that seems to have melded with her face after years of often harrowing work.

“Ava, I’ve come down here to tell you your shift is over,” says Goodwin. Ava startles, and opens her mouth to protest, but Goodwin talks over her. “Listen to me,” the older woman says slowly. “You’re not working another minute. I have news about Connor.”

Icy cold dread hollows out Ava’s stomach. A wave of nausea ripples over her, accentuating the headache that’s been steadily building over the past few hours. In a low voice, she mutters, “What is it?”

Charles and Goodwin exchange a glance, then Goodwin says, “About an hour and a half ago, authorities were alerted to a Porsche that flipped over into a ditch on the outskirts of the city, on Andover Road.” Ava sways on her feet, and still Goodwin goes on. “It’s... it’s Connor.”

Ava starts to fall forward, a combination of exhaustion and terror turning all her muscles into stretched-out putty. Dr. Charles catches her and holds her upright as a dry sob scrapes up Ava’s throat. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. He’s okay.”

At that, Ava holds her breath so she can hear them over the sound of her raspy panting. “How bad?” she croaks.

Goodwin takes her hands and squeezes them. “He’s fine, Ava. He’s alive. Why don’t you go see for yourself?”

This suggestion makes her spring to action. Ava pulls away from Dr. Charles and fixes her watery gaze on her boss. “Where is he?” 

“He was treated down here then transferred upstairs. Room 426.” 

Ava darts away and skips the elevator in favor of the stairs. She pounds up them two at a time, sometimes three, and swings through the stairwell door with the force of a tsunami.

She slows when she reaches his room, and allows herself to take a few deep, steadying breaths. Then she knocks on the door frame a few times and slips inside. What she sees makes all the air in her lungs disappear again.

Connor lays propped up in the bed, thoroughly bandaged up on his head and limbs. His right arm is in a cast, bent at a precise angle and set away from his torso. At her knock, his head turns to her and his bruised face breaks into a smile that oozes nothing but adoration. “Avey,” he grunts, stretching his less wounded arm toward her. 

“Oh my god.” She doesn’t even hear herself speak, but she feels the shape of the words on her tongue. Ava rushes forward and throws herself into the chair next to his bed. “What the hell happened?”

He sighs and presses back into his pillow, visibly relaxing when her hand finds his on the thin white sheets. “I was driving out to that place...” He winces a little as he adjusts his position. “That, uh, that place you like... that winery out in the countryside? Wanted to get you a gift certificate for Christmas. I made an early start because of traffic and I wanted to enjoy a sunrise for once on my day off. On the way back, I went a little too fast around a curve and bam, car flips over. I’m okay, though. Worst thing is a broken arm and bruising on my chest from the airbag. No worries, though, the dexterity in my fingers shouldn’t be affected.” He wiggles the fingers poking out of the cast and offers a sheepish smile, resting his cheek on the pillow so she can stroke his hair and jawline. “Of course you’re my emergency contact, but I told them you’re a doctor here and you probably wouldn’t answer your phone right away. Ended up taking longer to reach you than I thought.”

“Yeah, I was... I was called into an emergency operation,” Ava mutters. For a moment, she forgets what words are, then shakes her head in awe and adds, “I’m so glad you’re okay. I thought... well, I don’t know  _ what  _ I thought. All these crazy things were popping up in my head, like maybe you were kidnapped and the person forged a text and that note from you.”

Connor chuckles. “That is pretty extreme. Who would want to kidnap me?”

She lifts a brow at him. “You  _ do  _ realize you’re the heir of one of the richest families in Chicago, right?”

He rolls his eyes. “Believe me, I try to  _ forget  _ every day.”

“Says the man who drives a Porsche.”

“You mean  _ drove  _ a Porsche.”

Ava’s smirk falls back into a frown. “Right.” They slip into silence for a couple minutes, letting the quiet beeping of the nearby heart monitor lull them into the bliss of togetherness. She’s leaning down against his shoulder, awkwardly draping her upper half over the bed, when she mumbles, “I wouldn’t be able to live without you, y’know.”

She rubs her thumb over his wedding band while he exhales. “I couldn’t survive without you either, Avey.” He strains to press a kiss into her temple. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replies, the words coming out effortlessly and heavy with meaning. Ava gazes at their hands joined together over the blanket, listens to his soft breaths, feels the rise and fall of his chest as she leans on him. Then she says, “You better not die on me, Rhodes.” 

He’s sleepy now, barely awake, and she feels quite the same. Despite this, she forces herself to sit up and pull away from his warmth so she can look into his eyes. “I’m not planning on it,” he rumbles.

“Good.” She perches her elbows on the side of the bed, toying with her lower lip. Connor’s baby blues burn into hers, simmering with affection and desire. She takes a deep breath, one that must be her millionth on this taxing day. “Because I’m pregnant.”

At that, Connor jerks up, barely taking the time to cringe at the pain this motion must cause. Suddenly he’s fully awake, previously drooping eyelids now pinned back to accentuate his thrilled expression. He appears to be at a loss for words, but she fills in the blanks.

“Are you... are you happy?”

“Happy?” he sputters. “I’m— I’m  _ overjoyed,  _ Avey! Holy shit. This is... this is incredible.” He flails his free arm at her, and she takes the cue to be yanked into a tight hug. “How long have you known?”

She smiles so hard her cheeks hurt. “Just a few days. I’d been feeling sick and I missed my last period, so I ran a quick blood test on myself.” They separate from the hug but keep their fingers woven together. “My god, it really is incredible, isn’t it? We’re gonna have a baby.”

“We’re gonna have a baby,” Connor repeats in wonder. “I’ll be lucky if they’re half as amazing as you are.” He glances from his cast to her. “And if everything goes well, I’ll be able to hold our baby with both arms by the time they’re here.”

He laughs, and she does too. And despite everything, despite this insanely stressful day and him looking like a literal wreck, they still have each other. They giggle like a pair of giddy teenagers. Ava waits for the elation to fade away but it doesn’t, and if this indescribable emotion is going to stick around for a while, she isn’t one to complain about it. She bends down to meet her lips with his, and with that he steals the last of her breath.


End file.
